Catching Up On The Week (Jan. 31 Edition)

A few quick links you may have missed this week and worthy of your time this weekend

Complex had a great article this week in which a member of the Recording Academy provided a first-hand account of the Grammy Award voting process. It’s a quick read, and it gives you a clue as to how you end up with some of the more ridiculous options over the years. Of course, if you’re not inclined to read a behind-the-scenes look because the Grammys are not an award worthy of your time, that’s perfectly fine. Fiction has its merits as well, for the record.

Cloud Nothings debuted a new song this week on SoundCloud, and you can listen to it here. I’ve been a fan for a few years now, and appreciated how their new-found love of The Wipers shaped their previous album Attack On Memory (without “Youth of America”, there would be no “Wasted Days”, and Dylan Baldi would probably be the first to point that out). After listening to the new track, I’m glad to hear that this love of The Wipers was not just a passing phase and continues to be an influence. Hopefully the rest of the new album lives up to this song (we’ll find it for sure on April 1).

And finally, the music world (and the world itself) lost a giant when Pete Seeger died earlier this week. It’s been great reading tributes to him from all over, and seeing different friends post his performances. There was one that I caught last night that I wanted to share, and that was his performance of his classic “If I Had A Hammer” with Stephen Colbert.